


Search and ????

by neverweremine



Series: More Spider Than Man [3]
Category: Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon 2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25987759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverweremine/pseuds/neverweremine
Summary: "What!?"Ava's elbows hunched in. The entire cafeteria had stilled and a multiple students paused their conversation to stare. Setting her plate on the table, she hurriedly sat and leaned in. "I mean," she whispered, "what? You... You saw Spider-Man?"
Series: More Spider Than Man [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876846
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Search and ????

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phoebe_Bumbleflip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Bumbleflip/gifts).



> Commission for Phoebe_Bumbleflip

LUKE

Luke rubbed his back as he sat down at the table. It had been his turn on the floor and while they'd arranged the most blankets and pillows for floor duty, waking up with aches was inevitable. "Good morning," he greeted as his spine popped into place. A mumble echo of 'good morning's greeted him back.

"You know," said Aunt May as she slid a heaping of eggs onto his plate, "I'm sure Peter wouldn't mind you taking his bed while he's gone. If you want, I can put the sheets in the washer and put on a fresh set. It's certainly better than sleeping on the floor."

The kitchen din fell until there was only the scrape of forks against plates. Luke put on his best smile. There was no way to tell her that he'd felt wrong just popping into the empty bedroom that morning to pick up his science textbook Peter borrowed, or that sleeping in Peter's bed would only remind him of their failure. "Thanks for the offer Mrs. P, but there's no need."

"Are you sure? Sam? Danny? It's no trouble and I'm sure Peter won't mind."

Both boys shook their heads.

She sent them a doubtful look as she placed the now-empty pan into the sink, but didn't push it. Luke pushed his omelet until it was a scrambled mess on his plate. The rest of breakfast continued in subdued silence.

.

In the days since Peter's disappearance, it had become a tradition for Sam and Ava to have a back and forth banter while they walked to school. Luke and Danny had taken to sharing earbuds and turning up Luke's mp3 as they walked, but that still meant having one ear tuned to the conversation.

"Why are we even going to school? We should be out there looking for Spidey." The sentences were worn; the syllables dragging with its repetitiveness.

"Director Fury's instructions were clear: stay in school and act normal; SHIELD has it handled. Plus, imagine if we didn't go and Aunt May caught wind of it. Skipping school will only make it harder to cover for him."

"And how will Aunt May catch wind of it? Agent Coulson is the _principal_ , he wouldn't call her to say we're missing. Not when..."

It had been days since he'd gone missing, but they still had trouble saying his name. They could talk about Spider-Man being missing because he was their teammate and a SHIELD agent, but Peter had a different weight to it. Peter was their friend, their housemate, and too damn human besides. Not like whatever it was that attacked them with eight eyes closed tight and six arms and too much damn fur...

Sam cursed. If Peter were here, he'd have said something about a swear jar. "I should've gone with him. I should've accepted his offer. I had nothing better to do and I blew him off."

The wire that had been taut as they walked together, loosened. Luke lowered the volume and accepted the earbud that Danny dropped into his hand. The blonde laid one comforting hand on Sam's shoulder and leaned forward as they waited at a crosswalk.

"You couldn't have known. Spider-Man has been doing solo patrols far longer than we have been a team and he would've gone out whether or not someone came with him. It was not your responsibility-"

Sam shook the hand off his shoulder. "Yeah, well, guess what? I still feel guilty. I was the one who didn't have any plans when he offered and I... What if I could've saved him -?"

"And what if you couldn't?" Danny shot back.

The sign turned green. They shuffled across the crosswalk with little fanfare, hitting school property without a word passed between them.

"Man, I hope we find him soon," said Luke. It wasn't a new or helpful sentiment, but he found he had nothing else to say.

"We will," promised Ava. "And when we do, I'm beating him to hell and back for falling for that obvious 'fake cry for help' ploy. I mean, who falls for that?" She was trying to lift their spirits, her voice too loud and her shoulders too sloped to bolster, but he appreciated the effort anyway.

They climbed the steps and entered the school. Usually, by this point, they would split and head to their separate lockers, but ever since SHIELD had found Doctor Octavius' notes, they'd taken to sticking together. There was little to no chance that Ock would find their secret identities and an even smaller chance that he'd decide to kidnap them during school, but Ava had decided it was better to be safer than sorry and there was little argument from the rest, especially after reading the notes themselves. Experimenting on supers with the Green Goblin serum...not caring for what happened to the subject so long as they produced results. Octavius had a twisted, evil mind that was still out there...somewhere.

They went to Sam's lockers first, because it was closest to the door. They tried to appear normal and not like a drone of bees, talking about plans for the weekends and shows on TV, but frankly, their attempt sucked. Sam got so far as boasting his recent new high score over Peter, before he tapered off, leaving them with nothing to go on but awkward mumbling. Good thing, no one was paying them a lot of attention.

That is, until MJ came along with Harry in tow. Uh oh.

"Pete still not back?" asked Harry. It was hard enough lying to Aunt May, who had no idea of her nephew's school life. It was harder to lie to MJ and Harry, who could fact check them if they were suspicious.

"No," Sam gritted between clenched teeth. Red alert. "We told you, Osborn, he won't be back until next week or longer, depending."

"It is unfortunate," Danny cut in with his smooth voice and easy smile, "that he'd been chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime week trip touring Stark Industries, but I'm sure he'll be back and have tons of stories to tell."

"He better. I know it was last minute but couldn't he have texted me goodbye before he left?"

"He forgot his phone at his house," stated Luke. It wasn't a lie.

"Of course he did," said Harry. For a moment, the corner of his lips lifted in a fond smile. "Of course he did," he repeated, his nose scrunching and his fond smile flickering into a bitter scowl. MJ patted his back consolingly.

"Well, we should get to class," she said. "See you guys at lunch?"

"At lunch," Ava agreed.

They made a quick circuit of their lockers and attended their respective classes. Luke was too preoccupied with math and lies and kidnapped team leaders to notice a stubborn strand of spider silk billowing on the flag pole outside.

.

AVA

.

"- telling you, I saw Spider-Man last night! Or, okay, maybe it wasn't Spider-Man, but it was definitely spidery -"

"What!?"

Ava's elbows hunched in. The entire cafeteria had stilled and a multiple students paused their conversation to stare. Setting her plate on the table, she hurriedly sat and leaned in. "I mean," she whispered, "what? You... You _saw_ Spider-Man?"

"Wait, what about Spidey? Do you know what happened to Spidey?" asked Sam in a voice a little too loud for her comfort.

She glared and gestured for him to sit and lower his voice. He complied. She did the same to Danny and Luke who lagged, eyes wide. They took their seats and as one, they focused on Harry who had begun leaning back, as if trying to get as far away from their attention as possible without leaving the table.

"Um, well," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "I don't know if it was _Spider-Man_ or someone who happened to be a big fan of the motif. It - he? It was different. He had six arms and a hoodie and those little spider-mandible things." He brought up two hands to either side of his mouth and wiggled his fingers, "And he was _super_ hairy. Like, maybe he was always really hairy under the costume and I never noticed, but it was bigfoot levels of hairy."

Next to him, MJ rolled her eyes. "Are you sure this wasn't another one of your nightmares?" To the group, she added, "He once called me at 3 AM after a scary movie marathon thinking Dracula was at the foot of his bed. It was just a hat rack and some coats he'd dragged near his bed to use as a barricade."

"MJ!" hissed Harry. "And for your information, I did not dream this one up. I have proof!"

"Proof?" asked Luke.

"Yeah, he left something behind and trust me, it's not anything I'd own, so I know it was real."

"What?" asked Ava, leaning forward until she was half-stretched over the lunch table. She could feel cold and mushy mashed potatoes pressing against the underside of her shirt but she didn't care. "What did he leave behind? Was it a paper? Did it have a code or symbols on it? Coordinates?"

"No. He, uh, he left sneakers."

The possibilities that ran through her mind halted dead in their tracks. "Sneakers. He left...sneakers?" Could that be code for something? Maybe he had tied an elaborate knot, or there was a secret compartment in the heel...

"Yeah," said Harry. He kept sending her dubious looks, his nostrils flaring at their proximity. Ava swiftly reclaimed her seat. "They were on the floor next to the couch. They're cheap and smell like they came from the dump."

"Do you know what he was there for?" asked Sam. "If he'd come back?"

"No clue," he snorted and his face contorted into a flat snarl, "and I hope not. If that was Spider-Man, I don't want him anywhere near me, especially since he's decided to take a turn for the freakish."

The table vibrated as Sam's knees collided with the underside in his haste to get out. They all watched as he grabbed his plate and stalked away.

"Hey, where are you going?" called MJ.

"Not. Hungry," said Sam.

"Jeez, what's up with him?"

They glanced between each other. Ava nodded her head toward Danny, who took the lead and steered the conversation to safer ground. Grilling Harry as their civilian selves could only get them so far. If they wanted answers, they'd need to do it later, when their interrogation tactics could be more...diverse.

.

"Do you think he got his memory back?"

"Possibly, but then why would he run to Osborn? Why not return to SHIELD?"

"He might only have some of his memory back. Harry's his best friend, he could've gotten a memory of their time together and came here."

Ava hummed. It wasn't a bad theory, but they couldn't say either way with what little information they had. In their eagerness for answers, they had arrived at Oscorp tower before Harry. The penthouse was familiar, in that they'd fought here once and had attended the brief all-out party, but the room was too...spacious. Too many shadowy corners and not enough cover. Danny seemed the most at ease, eyes roaming over the furniture and art pieces with keen eyes. Sam, of course, seemed the most agitated, sitting on the couch with his foot going a mile a minute.

"I should be patrolling for Spidey," he said.

"We agreed, no solo patrols."

"Then someone should come with me. Powerman? Iron Fist?"

"I sense your impatience, Nova, but I think we'd work better at finding Spider-Man as a cohesive group. Splitting our group now can only bring trouble."

"What Iron Fist said," agreed Luke.

"Great. So while we grill Mr. Moneybags, Spidey could be out there somewhere in New York stumbling lost-"

Ava steadied her breath. She loved Sam, but he could never let things go without a fight. "If he knew where to find Oscorp then he wouldn't be lost -"

"- and scared and alone. What if he's hurting other people. What if he's being hurt? We can't sit around-"

"We're not sitting around. This is the first real lead we've had ever since he went missing. We can't screw this up -"

"- and it'd all be my fault -"

"And how do you think I feel!?" she snapped. "I was right _there_. I swiped off his collar but then in came Green Goblin and I got distracted. If I had chased after them, if I deactivated the collar sooner, then maybe we'd have Peter but I didn't so..." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "So it's time to stop wallowing on 'what-ifs' and start focusing on what we can do to get him back now, and that's _not_ stumbling around blindly chasing every shadow in NYC."

Quailed, Sam shut his mouth and thumbed circles against the couch's soft fabric. His eyes were focused on the rug and he wouldn't look up even as she got closer. The fight left her body in a single gust of breath.

"Sam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so-"

Rustling. From outside the door. A glance at the boys confirmed that whatever she heard was too quiet for human ears. Raising a hand, she gestured to the door and made her way into a flanking position next to it. The rustling continued, like someone digging through a bag and trying to be sneaky. She drew her claws out as the others took her lead and surrounded the entryway.

.

HARRY

.

Harry hesitated as his hand hovered over the handle. At first, he thought the muffled voices behind the door were his dad on another one of his business calls, but then reality caught up to him and he reminded himself there was no one waiting for him as at home. Or, there wasn't supposed to be. The voices continued, getting louder and louder and it clicked. It had to be Spider-Man. Who else would break and enter the penthouse? Well, too bad for him, he came prepared this time.

"You won't suck my blood this time, Spider-Man!" he yelled as he wrenched the door open. He swung wildly, his eyes searching for a hairy face and huge, black eyes, only to find...

"Is that... a flashlight?" said the superhero known as Nova, his voice high and incredulous before bursting into full-blown laughter. "You thought you could stop someone with a _flashlight_?"

Harry dropped his flashlight. He narrowed his eyes at the assembled superheroes: White Tiger, Nova, Iron Fist, and Powerman. Spider-Man's teammates. They weren't as bad as Spider-Man himself, or so he had thought; breaking and entering wasn't as endearing as not turning his dad into a monster. "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"

"A flashlight!" Nova cried, "Did you think Dracula was in your house? Hoping we'd burn in the sun?"

Ignoring her teammate, White Tiger stepped up, claws sheathed. "We were wondering if we could ask you about your little visitor last night. It won't take too much of your time, but please, it would help if you complied."

 _Complied_. They were talking as if they were cops instead of intruders. And how did they know about 'his little intruder' in the first place? He hadn't even called the cops last night.

"How do you know he visited me?" He still had the flashlight in his hands and while he knew it wouldn't do much good against them, he considered chucking it at one of them anyway. For example, the Nova guy, who still howled with laughter.

"SHIELD knows many things," said Iron Fist. He said it as if he was imparting great wisdom. Harry scowled.

"That's so creepy. Do you know how creepy that sounds? If you know so much, then why don't you know your way out of my house before I call security?"

"Look," said Nova. He had stopped laughing in favor of hovering a few feet off the ground like some kind of astral figure, his body encased in a speckled, unearthly blue. Yeah, he should definitely chuck the light at him. "You either answer our questions or Powerman over here punches them out of you."

Powerman cracked his knuckles. Harry wished the sound didn't terrify him as much as it did. He wished for a lot of things, actually; things that ranged from the impossible to 'might as well ask for world peace on top', but that was neither here nor there.

White Tiger pressed a hand to Powerman's fists until they lowered out of view. "We want to find our teammate," she said, voice low and sincere and thick with a trudging desperateness that haunted Harry's dreams, "Please, any answers would be a great help to us."

He should demand they leave. He should call up security and have them remove the heroes for him. He did neither. Sighing, he relented. "Okay. Okay. I'll tell you what I remember."

.

"That's it?" asked Nova.

"What else do you want from me?" Harry threw out his hands. He had been explaining the events for the past five minutes but instead of appearing grateful, the team of intruders kept looking more and more displeased with every passing word. "I went to get a glass of water in the middle of the night, the TV turned on from the other room. I went to check on what it was, saw a huge shadow in the corner of my wall, turned on the lights, and it was Spider-Man! Or, Spider-Man's much uglier cousin. Then he crept away! I searched the rest of the house, only to find these things -" he gestured to the worn-down sneakers on the stool, "- and nothing else."

"Are you sure he didn't take or leave anything else?"

He watched as White Tiger fiddled with the sneakers, pulling at the tag and the tongue, one clawed finger tracing the laces, and even going so far as to take apart the heel. Weird.

"Not that I know of. I mean... my dad's room was open. It... It was closed ever since he got turned, but it didn't look like he took anything from there. It wasn't a mess, at least."

White Tiger put the sneakers back with a huff. She turned to him. "And which room is your dad's again?"

.

Harry didn't quite know what to feel, watching Spider-Man's teammates go through his dad's room. Powerman kept lifting furniture like it was no big deal, White Tiger kept sniffing the air as if she could track Spider-Man through his scent alone -- who knows, maybe she could -- but the aggravated little growls told otherwise. Everything was so much, so fast. If only Peter were here, he'd have found a way to loosen the atmosphere, or better yet, get the supers to leave.

Except Peter wasn't here. Too busy taking a tour of _Stark_ Industries without a heads up. What did Stark have that Oscorp didn't? If Pete wanted a tour of advanced facilities they could've gone downstairs; it wasn't like his dad was there to tell them no.

"Are you all right?" asked Iron Fist. "Your aura seems...perturbed."

"No, I'm fine. Completely fine."

Iron Fist didn't seem to be impressed with his sarcasm. No one ever was. Whatever. Turning to the room at large, he asked. "So how did he turn into...that? I mean, what happened to him?"

"Your dad did," answered Nova. Powerman elbowed him but the superhero didn't apologize. It was fine. He wasn't used to receiving apologies either. It was whatever.

"Figures, he always did choose Spider-Man over-" He bit his tongue before the word could come out but it wasn't hard to get the gist. An awkward atmosphere settled over the room and Harry could almost _taste_ the pity.

Worst day ever.

.

DANNY

.

The thing about people like Norman Osborn is that they wore false faces, concealing their true selves. It wasn't so far-fetched that it stands he hide things behind false walls too. Danny knocked against the wall, waiting for the one knock that would sound different. It wasn't until he was in the walk-in closet that it came.

"I believe I might have found a secret hiding spot," he called.

White Tiger came first and he demonstrated the different sounds to her. For the first time in days, she sounded happy. "Good work, Iron Fist." She said. "There a way to open it?"

He shook his hand. "I've searched the nearby walls, but couldn't find anything."

"That's fine. Powerman!" she called. "Get your butt here!"

"Yeah, boss?"

He made way for Luke and ended up next to Harry. Walk-in closet it may be, but it was still a closet. Ava explained what he'd found to Luke and the larger teen reeled his hand back, but not before turning to Harry. "Hey, man. You mind if we punch a hole right about here?"

"No, go ahead. I'll just call in some OsCorp maintenance folk and they can patch it over in a jiffy."

The answering sound of ripping had Harry dropping his sarcastic tone in a heartbeat. "Whoa, hey I didn't mean that! I was being sarcastic! Sar-Cas-M."

The electronic panel Luke held was visible even from the back. In front of him sat an alcove, no bigger than a shoebox, which sat empty.

"Any chance you have an idea of what was in there?" asked Ava. She pressed a few buttons on her communicator which then emitted a blue light. Ah, scanning the alcove for leftover residue. Smart.

"No clue," replied Harry. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it frazzled. "Honestly, I didn't even know that was in here. I - I guess I'm beginning to realize I don't know a lot about anything."

"The biggest wisdom comes from not knowing, because if you admit you don't know, then you're willing to look."

Harry didn't seem as comforted by his wisdom as he'd hoped. "Ah, yeah. Thanks."

Ava's communicator beeped. She dragged a finger through the bottom which became coated with gray dust. "Looks like whatever he kept here was small. A cylinder with a diameter no bigger than three inches. Sound familiar?"

"No, sorry."

"So," Sam said. He was leaning against the door of the closet, his expression displeased. Peter's disappearance had messed with his aura something fierce. "So far we've got sneakers that could lead to a dumpster or a charity bin, an imprint in an alcove that contained who knows what, and a key witness that witnessed nothing. You sure we shouldn't have gone out patrolling?"

Ava ignored him and turned to Harry, which only seemed to make Sam's aura even more frazzled, "Do you have any security feeds in the penthouse? Or, better yet, know where your dad kept info on his more recent works?"

"Well, there are no cameras in the penthouse, but I know most of the office feeds and any important OsCorp research would be on his office computer."

"Well then, lead us to it."

.

The office was impersonal, austere, and worst of all, had bad feng shui. There was too much emphasis on xun and kan and not enough on zhen or dui. Danny frowned at the self-portrait of Norman Osborn on the far wall as Ava pounded away on the keyboard.

"It's no good," she said. "The computer's too advanced for me to hack. We need the password."

"Hey, don't look at me. Dad wouldn't share the password with me even if I begged."

"We can take the computer with us back to SHIELD. Someone there might be able to hack it and then we can-"

"Hey, you can't take that! It's OsCorp property. My dad will kill me when-"

"When what?" snapped Sam. "He's a giant green monster, he would probably kill you regardless."

Turning away from the self-portrait, Danny made his way between Sam and Harry. The former was glowing like no tomorrow and the latter had his fist raised though everyone knew he wasn't one to throw a punch; sad that they clashed so hard when they were so similar...

"Knock it off you two!" shouted Ava. "We need to find out this password. Think, what could it be?"

"How about something Oscorp related," suggested Luke. "Like the day it was founded or something?"

"June 16th, 1991," recited Harry without prompting. The four teammates glanced at each other but didn't comment. Ava put in the date, but nothing happened.

"Maybe it's in numerical instead of long-form?" suggested Danny.

She inserted the date again. No luck.

"Let's try capital letters, or maybe he wrote in leet speak?"

"I should warn you that too many bad passwords and you'll be locked out," informed Harry.

"Great. Let's see. What would a rich megalomaniac use as his password? Oh, I know!" pushing Ava in the plush leather office chair aside, Sam posed his fingers over the keys. "How about Harry?"

It was a rotten thing to suggest so flippantly, and even worse to use one of their password attempts to try, but Sam had been emanating a rotten energy all day. Ava tried to stop him, but he had pressed enter right as her hand grabbed his elbow. "What are you doing? Do you _want_ Spidey to stay lost?"

"Look, I'm only saying it's useless to stand around here guessing at an old guy's password-"

Danny observed as a loading screen appeared on the computer. "Guys."

"- I mean, who even knows what's in that guy's head-"

The desktop booted up, revealing a plain wallpaper and several innocuous-looking icons. "Guys."

"Who knows how many chances we have, Nova, we can't play around-"

"Guys." He took a hold of their heads and turned it to the computer. "The password worked."

Their jaws popped open. Sam was the first to recover, closing his jaw with a click. "I totally meant to do that."

Danny glanced at Harry. The other boy's throat kept convulsing as he swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing as he worked his jaw. He looked the most shocked of all, so much so that all he could say was a single, "Oh."

.

SAM

.

"- I mean, he owns a multimillionaire company with sensitive information dripping out its ears and he has a five-letter password with no capital letters or numbers or anything. I don't care how sentimental it is, that's bad security."

"Nova, shut up before I make you shut up."

Sam groaned as he thunked his head back on the bookcase. The wait was killing him. Logically, he knew they were getting farther in their investigation than they ever could've patrolling, but he needed to _do_ something. Ava was the best with computers so of course, she had the mouse even though he was the one who figured out the password. So far they hadn't found much. Osborn was up to some pretty freaky stuff, including government weapon constructs. They had all agreed that the chances of it being some big mechanical weapon were slim so now they were browsing the biochemical weapons of which there were...a lot.

"How about this?" Ava said, her cursor circling a red liquid only labeled Project CX. There were big warning signs in red throughout the entire report. "Let's see, effects include increased aggression, strength, stamina, durability-"

"This is crazy." Mr. Moneybags said. "Why would Spider-Man even want that? How would even know about it? Don't tell me SHIELD-"

"SHIELD has nothing to do with it," Ava stated. "Chances are, Green Goblin sent Spider-Man to do his dirty work for him."

"You don't know that," Harry said. He sounded defensive, which was interesting, considering how the entire room knew it to be true. How else would Peter know where the alcove was without Green Goblin guiding the way? Pays to be in denial, Sam guessed.

"Hey, what happened to checking the security cams? That could clear things up."

It took no time at all to find the security logs and scroll back to the date in question. Sam pointed at the feed showing the living room. "I thought you said there aren't any cams in the penthouse."

"There...There aren't. He promised there weren't..." With the way he looked, brows furrowed, eyes wide and lost, he almost felt bad pointing it out. Almost. Turning to Ava, he nodded his head. "Play the tapes."

.

There wasn't much to the tapes than they expected. Spidey entered the lobby somewhere near midnight and walked straight for the door. There was a little pause as he passed the sleeping security guard, but it wasn't long before he was in the elevator.

"That's dad's keycard," Harry noted as a hooded Spidey swiped a keycard against the reader. The reader flashed red. A few seconds passed before Spidey started punching numbers on the keypad next to the door in a slow stop-and-start fashion and then the doors were closing and the elevator was climbing, up and up and up until it reached the penthouse.

"Who wants to bet Green Goblin was guiding him through an earpiece?" said Ava.

"That's good. It means he has not truly lost his grip on this world," commented Danny.

The rest of the video played out as Harry said. There were only two cameras in the penthouse, one in the living room and the other in the kitchen/dining area. At 12:56 a blur passed in and out of the living room feed. At 1:00, a light flicked on in the kitchen while something entered the living room feed and froze. Two minutes later the shadow made a break for the far wall, throwing something over its shoulder as it did. One sneaker must've landed on the remote because the TV buzzed on and the Harry in the kitchen feed froze. Mr. Brave grabbed the frying pan, moved to the living room, turned the lights on, and there he was. He hissed, he left, and Ava sped up the cam but he didn't come back.

"Do we have a clear shot of what he picked up, at least?" asked Luke.

"No," Ava groaned, "there's nothing on any of the monitors or in any of his hands. He must've pocketed it immediately after he got it." She exited out of the playback screen and put her head in her hands. "Another dead end."

"I'm sick of dead ends," stated Sam. He glared at the monitor only to blink as a shadow darted over the screen. No way... Stumbling his way to the computer, he took a closer glance at the time stamp. Ava had exited out of the playback, leaving only the present feed, which meant...

"He's here."

.

They burst into the penthouse. The flashlight was surprisingly useful as Harry aimed it straight into Spidey's face, causing the confused superhero to trip back and shield his eyes.

Even though Sam had already seen Peter's horrifying transformation up close, he was worse in the daylight. Fine hair covered Peter's face and body; clustered so thick that he wasn't sure if he had ears anymore or if it was lost in the hair. The left side of his body was void of the hair, which would've been preferable if it didn't reveal a hard, brown-red exterior that looked nothing like skin and everything like an ant's hard shell. Then there were those eyes, pupil-less and shiny and too big on his small face and those pincer things and the arms and - his limbs looked _wrong_ ; elongated and skinny and the lower ones were so long they almost dragged along the floor. It was wrong. This was wrong.

Luke and Danny were already doing their best to restrain Spidey as the light's beam shone in his eyes, but as time passed it was clear the flashlight's beam was having less and less of an effect.

"You remember us, don't you, Spidey?" asked Luke. "C'mon, we're your buds. You wouldn't hurt your buds, would you? You remember, right?" Spider-Man paused, four of his eight eyes squinting before he opened his mouth wide.

"Dinner," he hissed.

"Okay, maybe not."

The flashlight flickered out. Harry smacked its side but it only gave a weak beam before sputtering out completely. "Uh oh," he said, before darting to the side as Peter threw Luke and Danny into the opposite wall. Then he was doing that thing again, crawling on all eight like the girl from the Ring. Sam shuddered. He prepared himself for a fight, but Peter only turned his head, his eight eyes darting here and there as if scanning the room.

Ava must've had the same thought because she stepped forward. "You're here for a reason. What are you searching for?"

The more-spider-than-man growled. "He said if I followed the boy I would find him."

"Who's him? Who are you trying to find?"

" _Him_. Peter Parker."

The room turned as silent as a grave. So that answered the question of how much he remembered, which was jack shit.

Sam was the first to collect his bearing. He lowered himself to the floor, so his feet touched the ground. Even though his eyes were a solid black, Sam knew he had his full attention. "We can help you," he said. "We'll take you to Peter Parker."

**Author's Note:**

> This one was more of an experiment. I had five main characters and 5,000 words so I thought to myself, why not 1,000 words from each perspective? of course, I went a little over and some perspectives are better written than others but I hope you liked.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/Neverweremine1)


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